Hospicio loses case to DAR

The Supreme Court denied the petition of Hospicio de San Jose de Barili seeking to assail an order of the Department of Agrarian Reform on the sale of portions of the charitable institution's property.

The high court's second division's decision, penned by Associate Justice Dante Tinga, denied the petition, saying, "Even with the Hospicio being actually owned and operated by the Catholic Church, it still would not be exempted from the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law."

In 1925, petitioner Hospicio de San Jose de Barili is a charitable organization created as a body corporate by Act No. 3239, which was enacted in order to formally accept the offer made by Pedro Cui and Benigna Cui to establish a home for the care and support, free of charge, of indigents and other incapacitated and helpless individuals. The Hospicio was to be maintained with the revenues from the personal and real properties to be endowed by the Cuis and other donors.

Section 4 of the Act provides that "the personal and real property donated to the Hospicio by its founders or by other persons shall not be sold under any consideration."

However, on October 10, 1987, citing Presidential Decree 27, DAR-7 issued an order ordaining that two parcels of land owned by the Hospicio be placed under Operation Land Transfer in favor of 22 tillers as beneficiaries.

The Hospicio filed a motion for the reconsideration of the order with the DAR Secretary, citing the aforementioned Section 4 of Act 3239. It argued that the Act is a "special law, which could not have been repealed by PD 27, a general law, or by the latter's general repealing clause."

But it was rejected in an order dated March 30, 1997. The DAR Secretary maintained that PD 27 was a special law, as it applied only to particular individuals in the state, specifically, the tenants of rice and corn lands. Moreover, PD 27 that covered all rice and corn lands, provides no exemptions based on the manner of acquisition of the land by the landowner. - Liv G. Campo